West Eyreton School, Senior End of Year Prize Giving - Principal Speech: Kia Ora Koutou, Good evening everyone. Prize Giving is a special night for some very special people – our Year 5 – 8 students. It is the highpoint of our year when we celebrate our West Eyreton Learners. It’s a time to celebrate Excellence for those students who have achieved awards, cups, trophies & medals; we celebrate Example & Effort for those students who have made huge and commendable progress in their learning; we celebrate each child’s achievement for what they have individually achieved – each child’s learning journey is celebrated tonight. This year, our pupils have again made us very proud. They have earned Excellent National Standard results – 91% of our Y1 – 8 pupils are achieving AT & ABOVE the National standard in Reading; 93% are achieving At & Above the National standard in Writing, and 91% are achieving At & Above the National standard in Mathematics. These figures demonstrate exceptional achievement for a school, which we all can be extremely proud of, especially our West Eyreton Learners – all their hard work has paid off. WE DO HAVE A REMARKABLE RECORD OF HIGH ACHIEVEMENT ….we are a top achieving school thereby earning a 5 year ERO review and this doesn’t happen by chance – our teachers & teacher aides are all highly skilled, experienced and committed practitioners. They strive to help your child achieve to their very best– they are all EXCEPTIONAL. Alongside the work of the staff is the strong school & home partnership - this is another key ingredient, which contributes immensely to a child’s educational success. Over the last three years, West Eyreton’s past pupils have Excelled at the secondary schools they have moved onto, winning a multitude of awards at their prize giving ceremonies. This year, a third of the Year 8 students you saw standing up here on stage last year have received top awards at the Rangiora HS prize giving ceremony for academic, sporting & cultural achievements. These include the award for the top Year 9 Academic Achiever; the award for the top Year 9 Overall Achievement Cup for sporting, cultural & academic achievement; a past pupil attending Oxford Area School has been awarded Dux this year. West Eyreton is admirably over-represented for the size of our school at these secondary school award ceremonies. We are incredibly proud of our past pupils for taking every opportunity presented to them and continuing on to achieve Excellence in their learning. Going hand in hand, with the hugely important job of growing our pupils’ academic achievement is another priority, which are the 5 Special Qualities of our School Culture. The 5 Special Qualities are unique to West Eyreton and these support our learners to develop the 5 Key Competencies of the NZ Curriculum. A lot of what we do here at West Eyreton involves the 5 E’s. The E’s aim for Excellence through Empathy, Enterprise, Example & Effort; they encompass all that we aspire to. They are the West Eyreton way of equipping our pupils with all important life skills.

Each fortnight at our whole school assemblies a new E focus is introduced– Here is an example where our School Leaders are teaching a new E focus at an assembly. VIDEO We practise the 5 E’s in a catchy and tuneful way reinforcing what each E stands for. Please join us in singing the School Song – you’ll find the words on your programme – they’re also displayed on the wall above the stage. School Please Stand …… Looking ahead now to 2016, there are some exciting new developments coming up which I’d like to share with you:

1) At the start of next year, Parents will be notified about a Parent Portal, which will enable you to access and view your child’s personal details and attendance records. Parents will have their own log in & password to access their child’s information.

2) Beginning Week 4 term one, we will be trialling an OPTIONAL Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) programme namely a tablet or laptop. Parents of Y5 – 8 pupils will be invited to participate in the trial. Involvement in this programme is completely optional. BYOD will enable our students to collaborate together to learn, to self manage & to drive their own learning, to take their learning out of the classroom and to create a stronger home/school partnership. BYOD will encourage our students to be enterprising and to adapt to new ways & forms of learning. You will find detailed information about the BYOD trial in your child’s report envelope.

3) West Eyreton has recently become part of the Rangiora Community of Schools along with the Rangiora primary schools. The purpose of the COS is “investing in educational success”. This is a MOE initiative where clusters of schools will work together with a collective focus to raise student achievement by sharing each school’s teacher expertise & resources.

• This year, West Eyreton has been working on a Cultural Responsiveness project along with Cust, View Hill, Oxford Area and our local ECE’s – we are all working with the Tuahiwi Marae education committee looking at ways to support and promote success for Maori learners in the Oxford/Eyre area. This project is funded by the MOE.

4) In term 4 this year, each fortnight, tutors from the Kapahikitia Trust have commenced teaching Kapahaka to all classes here. Tutors, Whaia Debbie and Matua Wiremu were leading the Powhiri Haka tonight.

5) A highlight for our school this term has been gaining our Bronze Enviro Schools award. This award has taken us two years to achieve and has been contributed to by all the pupils & teachers. Congratulations to Lisa Duff and the School Environment leadership team for guiding us along this journey. We will now be working towards our Silver Enviro Schools award.

6) In 2016, we have two new staff appointments in the junior school: Ms Kate Norman will be teaching the Room 1, Year 1 class and Mrs Judi Tallott will commence teaching the NE class part-time with Ms Veanne Reed. To conclude, I’d like to thank and acknowledge these people who have played an important part in our pupils’ learning achievements throughout this year:

• Thank you to the Board of Trustees for the commitment they invest in our school and for all their support throughout the year working alongside us to achieve the best teaching & learning opportunities for our West Eyreton Learners.

• A special thanks to our hard working parent groups for all the support you’ve provided to us this year. Thank you for your many contributions which we value immensely – your support creates a wealth of wonderful learning facilities, opportunities and possibilities – your work enables us all to ‘reach for the stars’ as we create rich learning experiences for your children.

• To all of the West Eyreton staff – thank you ALL, for your dedication, drive, fortitude and desire to achieve the very best for our West Eyreton Learners. All my very best for a well-deserved and wonderful holiday.

• Tonight we farewell our 2015 Year 8 leavers – this group is an astute, confident & savvy bunch. This Thursday they will be leaving West Eyreton well equipped to achieve success as learners – they know who they are, and they know what they need to do to succeed. We wish them great accomplishments in all their endeavours. We will miss them all –they have performed some excellent work in their leadership teams, on the student council and as leaders at the school.

Finally, on behalf of all of the staff, I wish all our West Eyreton pupils & families a very happy Christmas and a wonderful 2016-year ahead.